Lutheran Schools Week

It's Lutheran Schools Week! The kids get to wear something special to school each day this week. Today is "career day." We have here Nurse Mary and Chef Julia. I knew there was a reason we kept that Grill Team chef hat.

Acrobatics

Mary would like everyone to see just how silly she can be when she is hungry.



("I stand on my head!")
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This was the photo Mike posted to Facebook today. He called the girls downstairs for lunch and here's what he got. Julia also insisted that "Mary" is no longer her sister's name....instead she is to be called, "Skunky."

The Mount Olive Christmas Pageant

Last Sunday, our church put on a little Christmas pageant after mass. It was one of those productions where everybody heads downstairs to the "fellowship hall" after church is over and munches a variety of Lutheran goodies...while the kids re-enact the Nativity. This always proves to be an amusing event for everyone. I knew that going in. However, I said a little prayer during church that the "amusing" part of the event would not be brought on by my children. (Julia, after all, was playing an angel! That's a good omen, right?) Unfortunately, I was interrupted mid-petition by a hungry 18 month old, wanting to munch the rest of her banana. I never finished my prayer. I should have.

The pageant started with the a prayer. When Pastor was finished, he said, "I have been told that we need to get things rolling. Some of the little angels are getting a little antsy."

Seconds later, there were kids marching in, two by two, to "Away in a Manger." It was cute. They had costumes...some camels, a sheep, a cow, a thing with horns (reindeer? Goat? Bull? ) Mary, Joseph, shepherds, three wise men, and a few little girls wearing the white "altar boy" outfits with halos on their heads...aka angels. Everyone looked picture-perfect. Except where was Julia? She was supposed to be in the crowd of angels. Did I miss her? She is the shortest one here....

Wait. A few seconds after I noticed my missing daughter, she came rushing in, holding the hand of the "director," being coerced to walk up to the stage. Instead of the neatly combed blonde hair in pigtails that her papa had prepared that morning, Julia's hair was a voluminous rat's nest. Somewhere in it was a tinsel halo, tangled among the sticky strands of blonde with remnants of the five packages of gummi bears she had probably been eating before the show...to keep her busy, of course. When she saw the stage, she broke out in a full run, eager to get the show going.

The first few minutes went well. Julia stood as still as, well, an angel...while they read a few verses from Luke's gospel. The handbells played. The kids stood up again when the bells were done and resumed their roles. Except by this time, the novelty of the situation was clearly over. Julia started getting antsy. She sat, she stood, she spun around in circles on her butt. After the novelty of *that* was over, she walked away from her crowd of angels and stood right in front of Mary. (Not our Mary, but the girl who was playing the actual Mary, standing next to Joseph and the baby Jesus.) Mary, who was being played by a shy, very well-behaved ten-year-old, suddenly was shuffling on her feet like she was stumbling. What was Julia doing? Was I imagining this?

No. I was not imagining it. Julia was carefully scooting Mary backward toward the back of the stage. She wanted Mary's spot. My eyes grew big in horror as I rememberd something Julia had said during rehearsal:

"Mommy, I am sick of being an angel. This is boring. I want to be Mary!"

Oh dear. She was trying to live out her aspirations by eliminating her competition. Julia was trying to knock Mary, the mother of Jesus, right of the stage!

I remembered that prayer that I never finished.

Thankfully, Mary had to leave her post and read a few lines at the lone microphone across the room. When she moved away from her spot, Julia stood there and grinned like she had won the prize. The manger was HERS! Also fortunately, if you haven't noticed, Julia gets bored with things rather quickly. Soon after she had achieved her prestigious position, she grew tired of standing next tp Joseph and simply jumped off of the back of the stage herself.

At this point, Mary, our Mary...not the girl playing the Blessed Mother... decided to take matters into her own hands. Mary notices everything....even when her sister ditches the Christmas play off the back of stage. Over the hush of the nativity, she shouted, "DOOOO-UH, DOOOO-UH!" (Translation: JULIA, JULIA) Mary was no longer content munching on christmas cookies. She wanted to get up there and be part of the show. Mike tried to stop her initially, but I told him to just let her go up there. Perhaps she could talk some sense in to our little "angel."

This proved to be a very good idea. Not because Mary saved the day, but because Papa was now free to collect The Three-Year-Old and put her back in her place onstage before she knocked down the ten foot high wooden star display that probably weighed about thirty pounds. We saw the stars began to quiver...and before I had the chance to sic Mike on Julia, he was already backstage, steadying the heavy star tower....and probably preventing a call to 911 on a Sunday morning and some horrifying nativity bloodshed...

....

Although hesitant at first, Mary approached the stage and climbed right up. No costume and in a bright red dress, she took center stage and tried to act like she knew what was going on. When it came time to sing, Mary smiled. I could read her mind. "I know how to sing! I do that at home all the time!" She "sang" with the christmas carols, loudly and clearly, just like we do in the car: "Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum." Now THAT was cute. People went "ohhhh cute!" Mary glowed. She continued "Bum Bum Bum-ing" a little bit after the songs were over. She actually lasted about half of the pageant up there.

Meanwhile, her sister was able to remain on stage, now fascinated by a bale of straw. Phew. There was plenty of straw there for Julia to pick at over a period of ten minutes. Except for some additional flopping around onstage and obligatory showing of the crotch (why do little girls ALWAYS find it necessary to lift up their dresses in public?) We were in the clear. At the end of the pageant, Julia ran off the stage and crashed right into a pole. It's naptime!

Well, I guess all's well that ends well. And this ended well. The people of Mount Olive got their Christmas pageant. They witnessed beauty, cuteness, hilarity, a bit of danger, and even some nudity. All in all a good show. Next year, I bring the video camera.

Random photo of the day

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PRODUCE!

Mike and I joined what we affectionately call "The Hippie Farm Co-op" this year, which means we get big box of fresh locally grown veggies every Monday. This year, since September was so very warm, they had some extra canning shares of broccoli and tomatoes. At Mike's request, we bought one. I was thinking we'd have a few jars of each and we could eat them sometime in January...



WHOA. When the "canning shares" arrived, I finally figured out what I had committed to: a winter of Rabbit-dom. FIFTY POUNDS of broccoli awaited me on our doorstep...and then came a box of SIXTY POUNDS of tomatoes. !!! I had a hundred and ten pounds of rabbit food on porch...and two days to pack it away before we went on vacation. Ugh!



That night, I cleaned up my favorite cleaver (yes we have more than one) and spent five hours hacking away at the broccoli pile. I didn't know this, but broccoli wants to be steamed before you freeze it...which meant I was dumping steaming piles of green cruciferous vegetable matter on any flat surface I could find. With the added smell of the HUGE box of tomatoes on the floor, our kitchen smelled like a V8 factory.


HACK.

The next night, it was time to can tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. When it came time to do the work, Mike popped his head around the corner and said, "Dear, I will be back in two minutes to do the canning for you. I think the canning part is a little complicated for you. Just give me a sec to sew one corner on this mitten." (He was making grandma Mitzi a pair of mittens for her birthday...) So, slop, squish, squirt, smush...I peeled the little red suckers and gutted them for TWO HOURS before I saw my husband....apparently the mitten tried to get the better of him. Conquering the Tomatoes was supposed to be a team project, but the other half of my team copped out at game time. Oh well. I had a blast listening to Metallica and being a Domestic Diva. I learned that you don't have to use a spoon to neatly remove the seeds and juice from a tomato....after you peel it, just hold it over the sink and squeeze. Pretty soon, a little stream of tomato guts comes zooming out of the fruit and hopefully lands somewhere in the sink (or on the wall...or ceiling...etc) What fun! After awhile, I even learned to aim properly.

The sixty pounds became sixteen quarts of tomatoes, nine quarts of sauce, and a bunch of pint jars with various combinations of the above. Ahhh...success.

Before we could get to all the canning, Miss Mary came along to help. She loves tomatoes, and I do believe she ate ten or twelve of them. Since they spent two days sitting in a box on the kitchen floor, she had plenty of time to help herself to a bite when passing through. She would bite a hole in the tomato and then suck out all the insides. It was funny until I discovered that she was secretly hoarding them upstairs. I noticed that there were red splotches on the carpeting through the living room and up the stairs. After following the trail upstairs, I found a small heap of juiceless tomatoes under the crib. Queen Mary was sitting near her throne of tomatoes, with gobs of tomato guts on the front of her onesie. mmmmm... Thank God for Lysol Deodorizing CArpet Cleaner...

State Fair 2009

This picture was supposed to be at the end, but I accidentally deleted it. Julia was asleep before the car left the parking lot. Nice work, mom and dad!

Last Thursday was our annual trip to the Great Minnesota Get-Together, aka the State Fair. Mike's family is nutso about the fair, so we always "get-together" with them and make a go at it. This year, we went on opening day. What fun we had!

We have also sort of made it a tradition to stay in a fancy hotel for as cheaply as possible (thanks priceline.com...) the night before so we can get the most of the day with the kiddos. They expire in the early afternoon, so walking onto the grounds by nine gets us through a few extra exhibits.

Julia partakes in the raspberries that grandma brought. She is eating them on a featherbed...

Mary explores the new turf

The first food of the fair: foot-long CORN dog. Julia had the first bite. It was a delicious breakfast.

mmmmmm...

The next series of photos are quite amusing. After eating Kettle Corn, the Corn Dog, a Deep Fried CAndy Bar (Jenny ate that herself..), we mosied on over to the Horticulture building because Julia wanted to see the honeybees. In the Horticulture building, you can buy a frozen apple cider for 75 cents...probably the best buy at the fair. It's like an apple juice freezie.

Well, I bought one of them for each of the girls. Julia liked hers for a few minutes, then left it in the stroller. Mary, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven. She wrapped both hands around the frosty thing and started digging in with her incisors. Of course, after a minute or so, she had eaten all of the freezie she could reach...the plastic sleeve got in the way. A blood-curdling scream echoed through the Horticulture Building. Mary was in tears. John had a fingernail clipper in his pocket, so I tried to take it away from her so I could cut some of the plastic away.

The second I took it away, my second child went completely postal.

She stopped shrieking and mounted a loud, deep HOLLER. Tears of anger flew slid down her frozen cheeks as she walloped her daddy with the back of her noggin. She was VERY UNHAPPY. She wanted that freezie back NOW.

I tried to cut it as quickly as I could...I managed to bathe my entire face and chest in the sticky apple juice that poured out of the holes she had gnawed in the bottom. I finally was able to cut an inch or so off the top and I gave it back to her.

Silence. No more tears. Smile!

Whoa.

Because I like science, I decided to try this little experiment again just to see if Mary would predictably behave in the same way. See the pictures below for your amusement.

Before. Happy. Life is excellent and everything is in its place...

Papa's hand reaches in and moves the freezie away from the Baby. Fear and anguish...

NOOOOOOOO!!!!

GIVE ME THAT BACK, YOU #(&!$& (!$)%$#!!!!!!!

oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh

Damn you, papa.

Ahh...I love my children!

Next, we took a ride on Ye Old Mill. Julia loved it. Mary's freezie ended somewhere inside, so she had another nuclear meltdown in the dark, wet tunnel. Our boat rocked something crazy...Grandma's sweater took home a sampling of the unnatural blue-hued water.

Mary, recovered, plays with giant legos at the Thrivent booth

They had this cute little farm exhibit for kids. We took the girls through it. They picked corn, fed fake animals, drove fake tractors, and even had the opportunity to plant plastic veggies in real dirt!

Mary takes a ride on her big green tractor

Julia's favorite moment of her life: she got to sit in the cab of an EXCAVATOR. She adores construction equipment. The excavator is her favorite, and she will drive one for her job someday. Then, she informed me, she will "also tell the other men how they should be driving their excavators."

Look out, world.

Auntie Jenny took Julia down the big slide. Julia had a great time.

This was a very odd scene. While we were waiting for J and J to get down from the slide, I noticed a 50-something woman taking a nap on the very busy boulevard. She didn't have anyone with her, and she was wearing ALL WHITE. I checked to see if she was still breathing, just in case. She was. And now, she has her picture on the internet. Ha!

Julia was getting very very tired toward the end of the day. She did get the chance to see a huge pig give birth to piglets. She was fascinated with the placenta. I didn't want to start explaining that one...

Mary took a nap in the stroller and awoke with vigor. She is saying, "Ohhh..."

Julia and uncle John

Julia had the chance to meet a real live princess! This one was about to have her head carved in butter. Julia was green with envy.

By 4:00, we were in the car. Mary does not sleep in the car. She would rather shriek and demand things that are out of her reach.

There is supposed to be a picture of Julia here, who fell asleep before our van left the parking lot. It's at the top of the page.

Farewell, state fair! FArewell, calories!

Farewell H1N1! I'm glad we didn't spend too much time in the 4H building.... eek!

Deep Sea Diving

Here is a picture of Mary Sarah Jayne, aka "Squishy," now shortened to just "Squish," a term of endearment given to her by her older sister about a year ago. It stuck. The following story is mostly about her. If you work for CPS (child protection services) from the state of MN, kindly please stop reading now. Thank you.



While we were up in Grand Rapids for Dan and Lindsay's wedding, we tried to spend some time as a family. My family had a cabin on Sugar Lake when I was growing up, and it's a wonderful lake to take kids in. Since it was too cold for swimming, Mike and I decided to take the girls on a canoe trip. We put lifejackets on the kids and off we went.



Julia had a great time. She had her own paddle and was very well-behaved. Squishy, on the other hand, would NOT tolerate her life jacket. It was keeping her from getting close enough to stick her arms in the water off the side of the canoe, and she screamed blood murder with the thing on. The second I took it off, she grinned at me and toddled over the the side to see the water again. She has no fears. I was glad that the screaming was over. My head was beginning to throb.



Mike and I made a point to canoe within 20 feet of shore on our way out because Squishy refused to wear her life jacket. (OK, MIke....she didn't refuse to wear her lifejacket. *I* refused to listen to the screaming...) We were in 1-2 feet of water the whole time on our way out. I only paddled about five strokes the entire way because I was so afraid that Squishy's new blue hat might get in the water and float away. I was keeping one hand on my kid at all times. She was peering into the water and sticking her arms into the frigid Northern Minnesota lake, sometimes up to her elbows.

Here is the Squish, doing what she does best: 1. fearlessly leaning over the side of a canoe, and 2. manipulating her mom into letting her go without a life jacket.

Mom, THIS IS GREAT!!!

...

Well, on the way home, Mike and I were getting hot. We made a mutual decision to avoid taking the long way along the edge of the lake and instead "booking it across the bay." This involved traversing deep water. Making light of her screaming and hollering, we put Squish in her life jacket and started paddling like mad.

About thirty seconds later, amidst my furious paddling (the screaming was making my migraine come back), we heard a "splash." Then silence. Mike and I turned around, and sure enough, about twenty feet behing the canoe, there bobbed Squish, thankfully in her properly fastened life jacket, in a state of "cold water shock" due to her polar plunge.

We looked at each other. Our canoe, which had been going at mach-3, continued to streamline away from the baby, who was now beginning to gather enough composure to shriek again, this time MUCH louder than before. The Look he gave me was classic: "Sarah, I guess you'd better jump in and swim over to her. She is alone in a frigid cold lake. Wow. That life jacket really works as well as they say it does!"

Reluctantly, I took my shoes off and removed the belongings from my pockets before I lept from the canoe into the glacial waters. Luckily, all of those canoeing trips at camp had taught me how to leap from a canoe without tipping the thing. I rescued my screaming child and swam her to shore. Since the canoe didn't tip, our digital camera survived to take a picture.

I walked an angry Squishy back to the resort. About five minutes into our walk, she began to shriek again. "What NOW?" I wondered. I had already removed her life jacket.

She pointed to the water. I lowered her down into the frigid bath and she giggled with delight. For the love of Pete and George! She wants to SWIM.

Much to her joy, I dragged her through the water all the way home. I had more goose bumps than she did. Every time I tried to swing her out of the lake and over my shoulders, she let out another ear-piercing shriek. I think we just might have a water baby on our hands. A manipulative one at that.

Here are our wet clothes. Mike likes to take pictures that remind him of neatly organized laundry. He took this one.

And here is the Naked BAby, making her rounds in the cabin after we removed her ten pound water logged diaper. Luvs are amazing.



Heh heh heh heh....